Used to Be
by chezchuckles
Summary: Taking up in the middle of Knockout, Castle tries to find a way around Kate's demand that they are over. SPOILERS. Some backstory on Lanie and Kate.
1. Chapter 1

**Used to Be**

* * *

><p>Kate Beckett doesn't often allow herself to think about what might have been. She's not a woman who dwells on the past or bemoans her fate in life. She's had her tragedies and her love affairs; she's made the hard decisions and been given the leg up. Kate Beckett has had her dark days, and she used to be done with them.<p>

The dark days didn't use to keep her up at night. Instead, Kate Beckett used to be able to allow the past to stay nicely, neatly buried. She wants it back that way again.

But Richard Castle went digging things up.

Her mother is dead; Kate wants only to not think about it. But Castle likes to mess with things, and Castle likes to put his hand in, and so now she's thinking about her mother again. She's tacking up a murder board and ignoring her Captain's advice.

She's involved again. So it's Rick Castle's fault that she can't let go; it's his own damn fault.

He's got no right telling her to back off. He's got no right.

* * *

><p>Rick calls even though it's so late, and he's never really called her like this before.<p>

He can't not think about everything: the fight, the terrible cold in Kate's eyes when she told him they were over.

That cold has fisted around his heart and frozen it through; shards of ice splinter off and work their way through his veins, sharp and terrible.

She answers on the third ring.

"Castle?"

He takes in a long breath. "Yeah. Lanie. I need your help."

When he explains it all, when it's all out there, the good and bad and ugly, Lanie is quiet for a long time (for Lanie anyway). And then she tells him a story.

* * *

><p>She wasn't top of her class in Atlanta, but she was close. She'd done all the rotations in med school, perfected her bedside manner, worked her way around the sleeplessness, got caught up in the rush of saving a life, but it was the anatomy classes she liked the best, it was the cutting that got her.<p>

The quiet cold, the scalpel in her gloved hand, the mask and goggles, all the little details that came to light. The striations of muscle, the unhealthy look of a diseased liver, the satisfying crack of the breastbone as it pops open under the bone saw. Her mother was appalled at her chosen field and tried everything to get her to change her mind. It pushed her away from home, from Atlanta, and she went where the forensic pathology residency took her: New York City.

Lanie Parish arrived in the city morgue like honey drizzled in a Yankee's unsweet tea, her presence initially unwanted but eventually enthusiastically welcomed. It helped that her Southern accent was all but unnoticeable, and that she was eager to take the worst shifts, and willing to learn.

Perlmutter was her first training pathologist, but his flat affect and acerbic sense of humor left her cold. She took on the task of teaching herself, asking questions of the other MEs and residents, subtly studying their methods, watching them work.

She also had a penchant for browsing through cold cases during the slow hours of the early morning. Lanie spread out files and medical examiner reports over the cramped space of a morgue table (she had no desk), pouring over the ME's notes and looking for patterns, learning time tables, researching indicators.

Dr. Parish wasn't a licensed pathologist yet, but she did all the work of one.

What fascinated Lanie back then were stab wounds. Knives held all kinds of mysteries: the length of the blade, grooves of the blade, bruising from the hilt. She inhaled the data from all kinds of murders, carefully creating a flow chart of stab wounds.

And this was how she met Kate Beckett.

* * *

><p>Her head filled with a rainbow of knife wounds, Lanie Parish went looking for the police reports on a couple of cold cases she'd pulled off the morgue's network. It was nearly eleven at night, the desk sergeant made her sign away her life just to get on the elevator, and then the Archivist wouldn't let her in the stacks.<p>

Frustrated by the police department's stonewall, Lanie stalked back to the elevator, colliding with a uniformed officer just getting off.

The woman looked bruised and brittle, the kind of brittle that was so strong she would break. She held on to Lanie as if the doctor needed help catching her balance, but Lanie was fine.

"You okay, honey?" Lanie couldn't help it; the euphemisms of her southern roots broke free when she was unsettled.

This woman needed some southern comfort; she seemed a ghost haunting the Archives.

"Fine. Just fine," the uniformed woman said, moving her shoulders as if to shrug off Lanie's concern. And then the piercing eyes came up to study her, curious but not cold. "Who are you?"

Lanie had her data with her in folders in her arms and she relaxed a little, sensing an opportunity. "Dr. Lanie Parish. I work in the ME's office."

"You new?" the woman said, still not offering much in the way of friendliness.

"About six months. And you are?"

"Beckett. Kate Beckett."

The name struck something in Lanie, but she didn't know why, couldn't place it. She looked at knife wounds, not life details. They were data, not mothers.

"Well, Officer Beckett. I need to get into the Archives, but I've got to have a police escort. Else I'm S.O.L., you know what I mean?"

Beckett gave her a long, untrusting look but Lanie only smiled.

"Why are you trying to get into the Archives?"

"I'm in my residency with the OCME. I've still got loads of research to do on my thesis publication, and I need some of the police reports for these ME reports. Can't get to 'em like this. Can you help a girl out?"

Beckett's shoulders eased down, and Lanie knew she had her. The woman nodded and headed for the Archivist desk just outside the caged room storing all the precinct's old files.

"Follow me then."

* * *

><p>Lanie and Kate spent the next six months digging through the Archives together, slowly sharing bits and pieces of themselves. Lanie detailed her research to Kate, but Kate said nothing about her real reasons for hanging out with the cold cases.<p>

And then they were meeting for dinner beforehand, spending more time out of the Archives than in them. Kate was a different person when not in her uniform, more relaxed and less reserved. She laughed. They became friends.

It was easy to do. They were both starting out in their careers, struggling against a male-dominated profession. Lanie still had another four years of residency to work through before she could be licensed as a pathologist, and Kate was focused on making detective as soon as she possibly could. They both had a plan.

They didn't have a lot of downtime, but when they did, they were together. The more Lanie got to know Kate, the more she realized that she'd heard of Kate Beckett before. But it took her a good year before she found her name again, buried in one of the cold cases in her data stream, a pattern of stab wounds both familiar and unhelpfully vague at the same time.

Johanna Beckett. Murdered lawyer. Left in an alley.

And Lanie didn't know what to do. Their friendship had so far survived a couple of quick boyfriends and a few missed dinner dates, but nothing like this. Nothing like, _I know your terrible secret._

* * *

><p>Castle leans his head back against the couch, his phone hot against his ear. "How *did* your friendship survive?"<p>

Lanie sighs. "I don't know what I said or how I said it, Castle. But I told her the truth because I knew she respected it. And then I kept being her friend."

"What am I supposed to do? I told her to quit, Lanie. I told her to give up, walk away, when I'm the one who started this whole thing. I'm the one who put her in this position."

"Just keep showing up, Castle."

He presses a hand against his eyes, tries to ignore the pounding in his head. "What does that mean? I need something concrete here."

"And I'm telling you: Keep showing up. What happens tomorrow? You gonna sit at home and mope about this, or are you gonna show up at her door?"

"You mean, completely ignore the fact that she wants nothing to do with me?"

"Yes."

"I don't see how that's going to help much." Castle squeezes the bridge of his nose and leans forward. His daughter is over at Ashley's place, scheming new ways to finish her senior year ahead of schedule. He's had a couple of fingers of scotch (after his mother left and he threw that first glass), but the alcohol doesn't give him any insights.

This is why he's called Lanie.

"Castle, I'm gonna tell you something, because I love my girl, and she needs help, and honestly, this stuff about her mom's case has always scared me."

He sits up, pressing the phone closer to his ear. "Lanie."

"I'm gonna do a bad thing, Castle. You hear me? I'm gonna tell you something you have no right to know, because I think you need to know it."

"Lanie?" He stands up, his breath catching.

"Give me a sec. I gotta get Javi outta here."

Castle hears her arguing on the other end of the line, but all he can focus on is the idea that Lanie knows something about Kate that he doesn't, something important. Something about the forensics? Something about the case? He's at a loss. What more could there possibly be?

"Okay," she breathes on the line. She sounds like she's settling in. "First of all, Writer-Boy, you promise me you're gonna show up when she needs you? You're not backing down, you're not running away, even if she does keep going on this case?"

Can he watch her kill herself?

Somehow, not watching her would be worse.

"Of course. If she'll have me. Always." His throat is dry, but he's not interested in pouring another drink.

"All right."

The silence is so long now that he starts pacing the living room floor. "Lanie. Any day now."

"She used to be in love with you, Castle."

"What! When?"

"Last year. Before the summer. She was in love with you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Used to Be **

**Part II**

* * *

><p>Castle meets Lanie's eyes as she steps gingerly through the too-bright hangar, carefully avoiding the numbered placards, the congealing blood, and the shell casings. Esposito had been shouting orders and bulldogging the uniforms for the last thirty minutes, while Ryan carefully interviewed Beckett. But things are winding up, the ME's van has already loaded the bodies; it's just the tech clean up left.<p>

Lanie gives him a flicker of an acknowledgment, something that's not a smile but not the cold shoulder either. Castle glances over at Beckett again and she's got her game face on, tense and remote. She's got a streak of blood along the back of one hand, both cuffs are stained. He knows that the ends of her hair have dragged through blood as well. His own hands are still shaking, and when he shoves them in his pockets, his thigh muscles are still vibrating with adrenaline.

It's been an hour, and he hasn't come down from this.

He keeps hearing the echo of Kate's cry in the hangar, the burst of gunfire. He showed up because the Captain called him, because Kate needed him, and he's not leaving now. But this place has burrowed into his soul like a hook worm, and he desperately wants to leave.

He's taking her home with him, or more accurately, he's going home with her. Internal Affairs has enough ammunition for now; he wants her with him. He needs her with him. He's got to get her out of here.

_She used to be in love with you_.

Castle waits until the hangar clears before he approaches her. He doesn't ask, he doesn't wait for her to speak, he just puts his hand to her lower back and leads her out.

Just the fact that she lets him touch her, that she walks at his side towards her car without comment. . .scares him. Isn't she mad at him? Didn't she say that they were over?

This doesn't feel like Over. This feels like Just Beginning.

* * *

><p>There will be a funeral in two days; Internal Affairs is all over this, smelling a rat but unable to produce the corpse. Kate has mandatory leave for being involved in a police officer fatality, but it probably won't last. She didn't fire her weapon; she only arrived on scene too late.<p>

Officially.

Castle got away with spending the night at her place after Montgomery was shot; she went into her room and shut the door and didn't come out for the rest of the night. Castle camped out on her sofa and texted his daughter the plan.

Alexis is on her way over now, bringing him some clothes and toiletries. Castle is afraid to leave, not because he doesn't want Kate to be alone for an hour, but because he's not sure he can get back inside if he does leave.

Kate didn't eat breakfast. She doesn't seem to care that he's here, which could be either a good or bad thing.

He's desperate to talk with her; he needs the comfort of her voice, the way she says his name. He'll take that in lieu of hugs, because he knows she's not a hugger, but he needs something. Anything.

It would be completely selfish of him to insist on having a relationship conversation right now. He keeps telling himself that. Immature as well. He reminds himself of that too.

She's sitting on the couch, staring at the pieces of the case in front of her: photos, police reports, the old cases Ryan and Esposito found, the ballistics reports, the ME's notes. She keeps shuffling things around like they'll make better sense in a different order, like it could actually be a jigsaw puzzle and all she needs is one corner piece.

The Captain took out the killing squad; his life was forfeit. Castle can't help being relieved, knowing that the hired assassin is out of commission, that he can't come after her anymore. When Lockwood escaped custody, Castle was sure Kate was marked for death.

But now. She's got a chance.

Do they have a chance too?

_She used to be in love with you._

* * *

><p>Kate watches Castle hug his daughter at the door, hears the murmur of their voices. And then silence again as Alexis leaves; the door is shut.<p>

She's not sure what that was about. Castle is carrying a duffle bag though. Oh. Clothes. He said something about clothes. Earlier.

She's finding it hard to concentrate on anything other than this conspiracy, this web of lies she's found herself tangled in. Her Captain is dead: futile, vain, stupid man. All those times he guided her search for her mother's killer and-

No. She forgave him. He is forgiven. It's nothing to her now; it's in the past. Buried. Let it stay that way.

She hunches her shoulders and leans forward on her knees. His funeral is in two days; his wife and kids will be there, will have to take the folded flag and watch his coffin lower into the ground. Kate will have to wear her dress uniform and try not to cry.

She's cried too much already. Castle was there; he witnessed her breakdown. She is done with those. She knows from her hours of counseling that grief is uncontrollable, and will do as it wishes, but she's not ready to let it have her. Not yet.

"Kate?"

She glances up and sees Castle still standing awkwardly near the front door, bag in hand, waiting on her.

"What?"

He doesn't ask if she's okay; she's grateful at least for that. The television is on mute and the flicker of its light casts shadows over her face. She wants only to not be. Just for awhile. Not think, not worry about Castle or the boys or the Captain's family. Just. Exist.

Castle drops the bag at the end of the couch but doesn't sit down next to her. Kate watches the faces on tv, the strange commercials that have no relation to her own life anymore. She needs a break in this case. Badly. In the worst way.

Suddenly, Castle is pulling her up off the couch, his hands wrapped around her upper arms, and crushing her against his chest. "I need a hug," he says roughly.

The heat of his hands, the warm press of his chest, these things put a crack in her resolve. And then the touch of his lips against the crown of her head, a mirror to the kiss he dropped on Alexis not minutes ago, has her breaking apart.

"Kate," he whispers into her ear.

She chokes on a sob and presses her face against him, trying to muffle noise and sorrow both. She won't cry. She won't. Not now.

A palm against the back of her neck keeps her locked against him, but she doesn't want to move anyway. She wouldn't.

She won't say she's sorry.

She might cry against him, might let him do that much, but she won't apologize.

* * *

><p>When he gets out of the shower, finally dressed in clean clothes again, he finds her in the living room, back at it. Chewing on a thumbnail, eyes almost glazed over.<p>

"Kate," Rick says, watching her study the murder board pasted against her window shutters. She doesn't turn around. "Kate, what are you doing?"

She folds her arms over her chest and glances back at him. "I've got to figure it out."

"Kate-"

"Someone is responsible for the murders of two people I cared about, Castle. I have to do this."

Castle steps forward, pushing away the gnawing fear in his guts. "Tonight? You can't take a night off to grieve for-"

Her eyes flash with darkness. "*This* is how I grieve," she hisses at him, turning from the window to stare him down. "This is what I need to do. Find the man responsible."

Castle stares at her, struggling with what to say next. He wants to hide her away forever, safe, but that's not Kate. He wouldn't admire the Kate who ran away, would he? Wouldn't be so stupidly infatuated with the Kate who gave up.

But still. "What did the Captain say about this?" he asks softly, knowing it's not fair, but not being able to help himself.

She narrows her eyes at him. "How much did you overhear?"

"I came in when you drew your gun on him, stayed back just in case."

"So all of it then," she says, setting her jaw.

"Enough to hear him tell you *not* to do this, Kate. He wouldn't give you a name because he knew you'd go after the guy. And you'd lose. Lose your life."

"He doesn't know-" She falters, sorrow washing over her face. Kate swipes at her eyes and clears her throat. "He didn't know what I'm capable of. He didn't give me a chance. There could've been a different way. A better way. All he had to do was *tell* me who it was and we could've taken him out together."

"Kate," he says gently, a reminder. "He died to keep you safe."

She shakes her head violently at him, but Castle's not through.

"Do you know that the people who love you are coming to *me*, Kate? Asking me to make you stop, make you let it go. Lanie's talked to me. She's told me things. Your father. Your own father came to my loft, Kate."

Her head jerks up; her anger is back. Betrayal. "Why?"

Castle sets his jaw. "They're all afraid for your life. For your life, Kate. We don't want you to die."

She crosses to him, using a finger to push against his chest. "You don't get to tell me what to do, Castle. Even if everyone seems to think you do. Doesn't give you the right."

"Everyone around you thinks you're in trouble. Don't you see that? Enough trouble that they're talking to me about it! *Me*, Kate. Lanie wouldn't give me the time of day when I came back this summer, but now she seems to think it's okay to tell me all about how much trouble you're in."

And just like that, he knows he's said too much, tipped his hand.

A look comes across her face, hard like ice, and she tilts her head, predator studying her prey. "What did Lanie tell you?"

"Just. How you met. I was-I thought I'd pushed you too far. I wanted her advice."

"How we met?"

"In the Archives," he elaborates, trying to steer clear of this past summer and the biggest thing Lanie shouldn't have told him.

"She tell you what I was like back then?" Kate's eyes are shuttered against him, making him think this isn't going to be a fun story. "She tell you what was going on with me? She say what happened when I found she was digging up my mom's case?"

"No," he says softly. "She said she didn't remember exactly."

"That's a lie," Kate answers. "She remembers."

And she tells him the story.

* * *

><p>Kate was sick in the bathroom twice before she got control of herself. Lanie kept apologizing for not telling her earlier, but Kate knew that if the woman had told her earlier, she wouldn't be in Lanie's apartment tonight, wouldn't have her for a friend.<p>

"Kate?" Lanie called through the door. "You okay, honey?"

"Give me a second," she muttered back, rinsing her mouth out again.

Kate took a deep breath and looked in the mirror at herself. Her skin was getting papery again, the bags under her eyes were darker, bruised-looking. Her therapist would be disappointed in her. She'd have to avoid a couple appointments until she got some weight on her, otherwise he might insist on hospitalization again. She didn't have time to fatten up on the psych ward, not when she was so close to making detective.

She opened the door and let Lanie study her. "Can you show me the ME's report?" she asked.

Lanie's jaw dropped. "No!"

"Lanie."

"Kate Beckett, that is *not* something you need to see."

"You're wrong. I do."

Lanie shook her head again. "You may be an officer, but you're not a detective, honey. It ain't gonna do you a bit of good to look at that report. You want details; sure, I'll give you details. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"I need it, Lanie. There's something that everyone else has missed. I need to find it. Every time I feel like I'm getting close, something blocks my path. I've got some help; the Captain of the 12th found me down there last week, in the Archives. He promised to look over it with me."

"I'm not letting you at those notes, Kate Beckett. You don't want to remember your own momma that way."

"I'll be fine. It's a case. It's an important case, the most important case of my life, but still just a case. I can handle it. I've got to do it all the time, working homicide."

Lanie crossed her arms and shook her head. "No."

"Fine. Then do your pathology research on your own," Kate said, and wiped her hand across her mouth as she turned to leave Lanie's apartment.

She was prepared to walk out; she would have walked out. She got all the way to the front door, preparing herself to walk out, and perhaps Lanie was just stunned speechless, but Kate even had the front door open before Lanie said anything.

"Katherine Beckett," she rebuked, both pissed and resigned.

Kate didn't turn around, but she didn't walk out the door either. Lanie had been one of the best female friends she'd ever had; she was what Kate imagined a sister would be like, bickering and swapping clothes and standing up for each other. She needed a friend like Lanie, desperately. A friend who didn't look at her and only see what she was missing. A friend that hadn't been a part of her childhood.

But she *would* walk out on her, right now, and not look back if Lanie didn't give her those ME's files.

Some things were more important.

"Fine. Have it your way," Lanie groused, turning her by the shoulder and shaking a finger in Kate's face. "But I get to sit with you while you read them. I get to be right here for all of it."

Kate studied her friend for a moment, probing her eyes for weakness, but Lanie had a steel in her that wouldn't be bent. "All right. We'll do it together."

Lanie nodded, but her eyes were troubled because she knew. She knew she hadn't won this fight. "This why you became a cop?"

Kate tried not to let her dread show on her face. "Yes. And when I make detective, I can re-open her case."

"If you find new evidence, you mean."

Kate nodded. "Yeah."

"And what about all the other cases you'll get? The other daughters you'll have to face, telling them their mothers aren't coming home? How are you going to do that, Kate?"

She looked at her friend and gave her an icy smile. "I know what it's like. I know exactly what they're going through. I'm the best person for it."


	3. Chapter 3

**Used to Be**

**Part III**

* * *

><p>She hoped to scare him off, somehow, with that story. To warn him about the price of crossing her in this. But instead of looking properly chastised, he looks determined.<p>

"I know this is important to you, Kate. I know it is. But it's more important that you stay alive. You keep tugging on the threads of this case, you're gonna pull something down on you."

"I can handle it." She paces to the murder board, studies her mother's picture. She's not afraid. She knows she probably should be, but she's moved far past fear here. If she can look at her own mother's autopsy notes, see the stab wounds on her mother's torso with her own eyes, then she can prod at the ragged edges of her grief until the identity of this killer becomes clear. "I can handle it," she repeats, confirming it to herself.

"I'm not saying you can't. I just don't want you to *have* to handle it. Can't you let it go for now? Just for now. Until things die down."

"The trail will be cold by then," she shoots back at him, glaring. Why doesn't he get it? Why can't he just help her with this?

"I can't watch you get killed for this, Kate. Montgomery asked me to keep you safe. And if it I have to-"

"No. Not you too, Castle. Don't do this to me. I *need* you." She sees him go still, realizes too late what she's said. "On this," she amends with a blush. "On this case."

He gives a shake of his head and steps closer, his eyes fierce. "Oh, no you don't. I heard it."

She takes a step back even as he crowds closer. "Castle-"

"No. You don't get to take that back. Don't do that to me, Kate. Not tonight. Not now."

She can't help but see the vulnerability in his eyes, the jagged shards of his own grief. He probably doesn't want her to see that, but she can't help being pulled up into it. "Castle."

"Just give me that. Just that, and I'll let everything else go." Castle keeps coming, intent.

Kate lets him get closer. She has to have him on this one; she can't afford to push him away any longer. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"You can have that," she says, her jaw working, brow furrowed.

Castle breaks a grin and reaches up to wrap his arms around her, tugging her against his chest with a long, slow breath out. "Can you say it again?"

"That's pushing it," she grumbles from his shoulder, feeling her whole body heating up.

"One more time. Just once."

"Castle."

"Consider it payment due."

"For what?" she mutters, pushing on his ribs with her palms, the only place she can reach in his tight grip.

"For not talking about us. For not *making* you talk about us, not after we nearly froze to death, not after we almost blew up, not after you almost got killed by Lockwood, and not right here, right now. I've let it go before, and I'm letting it go now, Kate, because I can wait. Because this isn't the time. But I'm gonna need something from you."

She takes in a deep breath of her own, inhaling the scents of cotton and aftershave and male skin, then closes her eyes, unable to believe she's about to say this.

"I've got something better," she says, almost too quiet for him to hear, but she's been infused with some crazy courage all of the sudden, maybe because she can hear the amused determination in his voice, and she's got to do this. She's got to.

He starts talking again, not willing to wait just the extra second she needs. "Better than-"

She lifts up on her tiptoes and puts her mouth over his, silencing him. Castle immediately takes control, his palms cradling her skull, his tongue parting her lips and skimming along her teeth. Instead of letting him bend her back, she pushes up against him, slanting her mouth over his, drawing herself up, hands dropping to his waist, fingers seeking skin.

They break apart at some mutual signal, staring at each other. She can't catch her breath, can't think; she wants another one just like that, so she takes it, rising up to capture his mouth again.

His groan vibrates along her throat and down into her belly; she curls her fingers in his shirt, tugging him closer. He does come closer, of course, dropping an arm to the small of her back to help lift her into him, their hips meeting flush, her legs falling to either side of his thigh. She's starving for his mouth, rocks against him without meaning to, brings her hands up to his hold his cheeks, keep him there.

He breaks away. "We not talking about this either?" he says.

"What do you think?" and she steals another kiss, leaning against his chest, using his thigh as leverage to gain height on him.

Castle lifts her a little more, presses her hips closer. She lets the back of her hands trail up his sides, skimming his ribs until he shudders against her mouth, hissing.

She's been in control, but then he spirals his hand from her lower back to just above her belly button and swipes his thumb along the edge of her bra. She arches into him despite herself, caught closer to him, trapping his hand, his thigh heavy and hard against her, and she-holy-holy-mother-

she is not going to do it like this. No. Not today.

Kate breaks away from him, breathless, stunned. Shaky.

"I think I'll do whatever you want, Kate Beckett."

She blinks; he has both hands on her hips again and tilts her towards him, rocking her against his thigh. She shudders, feels the ripples of tension radiating out. He's doing this on purpose. He knows exactly what he's doing.

She bites her lower lip, trying to master her rebellious body. "I want. . ."

He doesn't ask, doesn't have to; he must surely see it in her face.

But Castle lowers his leg, letting her slide to the floor, and shuffles back a pace. He keeps his hands on her waist, his eyes too tender for her to meet. He's just as breathless, she's glad to see.

Kate blinks, realizes she is close to tears and hates herself for it.

"Well, I can admit it. I want you," he says softly.

And when she lifts her head to stare at him, Castle offers a tender kiss, his lips heavy and warm, dragging across hers. She parts her mouth, lets him slip back inside, gentle, easy. Her lids are heavy when he pulls away, his forehead resting against hers.

She draws a line down his cheek with her finger, curls her palm around his neck. She can see all the things in his eyes he wants to tell her, but won't yet. He promised not to make her have this conversation.

"Do you think you could love me like you used to?" he whispers, and his eyes are closed now, not to see her.

She closes her eyes too, to keep from blurting everything out, lets herself rest against him. She really can't have this conversation today. His palm slides up and down her back, soothing instead of stoking; she's grateful he knows the difference, that he's letting it go.

So grateful.

Because there's no used to about it.


End file.
